Jose Mourinho

Metalhead said:

I think that it’s in no small measure down to the fact that many didn’t want Mourinho and are determined to be proven right so every situation, every game, every word said by Mourinho will be contrived in such a way to paint him in as negative light as possible and where possible to ‘prove’ that he’s the wrong choice and that he will be on his way very soon.

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You can see it in the match threads.

5th Minute - "Well this is shit"
"We look so flat"
"This is so depressing"
etc etc

Many are waiting for the first negative thing to happen, whether it be a poor pass or corner giveaway and they jump all over it.

Even under Poch in the early days it could be a real chore watching us. Hull, Villa, Stoke, Burnley, Leicester, West Brom, West Ham..loads of games we were pretty appalling.

I'm really struggling to think of a coach who came in and immediately improved the whole outlook of a club from the day they arrived.

Klopp, Poch, Pep, Wenger, Fergie, Jose...they've all had to go through the tough process in order to have a stronger team and become successful. Why are people expecting different here?

At this point id much rather grind out a 1-0 win, showing stronger mentality, than win 4-3 in a game where we show plenty of craft in attack but are wide open at the back meaning we can concede at any moment.

In fact Jose tried that and it resulted in getting beat 3-2 by Wolves, 3-1 Sheff Utd, Chelsea 2-1, drawing 2-2 Norwich, beating 3-2 West Ham, Bournemouth 3-2, Villa 3-2.

Plenty of goals conceded, plenty of games in which it could have gone either way. Proper Tim Sherwood style. I'd much rather go into a game knowing our defence is reliable and knowing we have cut out the stupid mistakes.

Metalhead said:

I think that it’s in no small measure down to the fact that many didn’t want Mourinho and are determined to be proven right so every situation, every game, every word said by Mourinho will be contrived in such a way to paint him in as negative light as possible and where possible to ‘prove’ that he’s the wrong choice and that he will be on his way very soon.

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Yes, Mourinho is in many ways the archetypal 'divisive' managerial appointment. Lines were drawn from the get go. At one end of the spectrum the fans with super high expectations based on Mourinho's formidable trophy haul and at the other fans expecting him to be the ruin of the club. Because of his reputation he was never going to enjoy the same benefit of the doubt that Pochettino had at his first season at the club when Poch was still a relative rookie. Unless Mourinho is hugely successful I cannot really see this changing.

DanielJohnCosta said:

yeh, so they are both extremes on either side of the situation...

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Fairs

SpursD22 said:

I’m not going to scream Mourinho out or constantly say he’s not the right manager for us but I will say we will never ever achieve anything with him as the manager. I obviously know he’s not the only problem but he’s one of the problem

And don’t bother replying telling me what he’s won in the past, because it’s in the past

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Everything that every other manager has won is in the past.

What a strange statement to make.

enfieldyid said:

Sessegnon has nothing to do with Poch. We wanted him on the advice of Levy’s special advisor David Pleat. The fact is Poch almost walked last summer because Levy’s antics in the transfer window. We were never signing Dybala and we spent forever negotiating for his prime target Lo Celso. The other player Poch wanted on the advise of Bisela was Calvin Phillips, but that was a no go because Levy was more concerned about Jack Clarke who was also on the advise of his special advisor.

Levy fast and loose antics in the transfer windows have left us with an unbalanced squad. The fact he listens to David Pleat as a special advisor is baffling.

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How do you know that Sessegnon had nothing to do with Poch?
How do you know we weren’t really in for Dybala?
How do you know that Poch wanted Phillips but that Levy overruled him?
How do you know that Pleat has such a massive influence over our transfers?

Genuine questions. I would love to know the answers. Cheers.

rossdapep said:

You can see it in the match threads.

5th Minute - "Well this is shit"
"We look so flat"
"This is so depressing"
etc etc

Many are waiting for the first negative thing to happen, whether it be a poor pass or corner giveaway and they jump all over it.

Even under Poch in the early days it could be a real chore watching us. Hull, Villa, Stoke, Burnley, Leicester, West Brom, West Ham..loads of games we were pretty appalling.

I'm really struggling to think of a coach who came in and immediately improved the whole outlook of a club from the day they arrived.

Klopp, Poch, Pep, Wenger, Fergie, Jose...they've all had to go through the tough process in order to have a stronger team and become successful. Why are people expecting different here?

At this point id much rather grind out a 1-0 win, showing stronger mentality, than win 4-3 in a game where we show plenty of craft in attack but are wide open at the back meaning we can concede at any moment.

In fact Jose tried that and it resulted in getting beat 3-2 by Wolves, 3-1 Sheff Utd, Chelsea 2-1, drawing 2-2 Norwich, beating 3-2 West Ham, Bournemouth 3-2, Villa 3-2.

Plenty of goals conceded, plenty of games in which it could have gone either way. Proper Tim Sherwood style. I'd much rather go into a game knowing our defence is reliable and knowing we have cut out the stupid mistakes.

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I used to dislike Mourinho as much as any other Spurs fan but the simple fact is that he is now our manager. Jose has himself said something along the lines of ‘whichever club I am managing is my sole focus’ meaning that whilst he has fondness for the clubs that he has managed, he isn’t sitting there thinking about Chelsea or Inter or Real Madrid or Porto. Well, likewise, Spurs as a club means more to me than who is managing or playing for us at this moment. Therefore, as much as, for what it’s worth I wasn’t very keen on him coming (not that this means anything) but now he’s here I want him to succeed because him succeeding means happy times for every single one of us. I don’t want to keep losing matches so he ends up going and of course none of us have any joy about minimalist football but as a starting point - the foundations of something better even if it’s not flowing football, I can live with it. As long as it’s going somewhere and we start to put results together, that’s what matters.

SecretLemonadeDrinker said:

How do you know that Sessegnon had nothing to do with Poch?
How do you know we weren’t really in for Dybala?
How do you know that Poch wanted Phillips but that Levy overruled him?
How do you know that Pleat has such a massive influence over our transfers?

Genuine questions. I would love to know the answers. Cheers.

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Narrator: He doesn't.

enfieldyid said:

Sessegnon has nothing to do with Poch. We wanted him on the advice of Levy’s special advisor David Pleat. The fact is Poch almost walked last summer because Levy’s antics in the transfer window. We were never signing Dybala and we spent forever negotiating for his prime target Lo Celso. The other player Poch wanted on the advise of Bisela was Calvin Phillips, but that was a no go because Levy was more concerned about Jack Clarke who was also on the advise of his special advisor.

Levy fast and loose antics in the transfer windows have left us with an unbalanced squad. The fact he listens to David Pleat as a special advisor is baffling.

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What's baffling is how some fans manage to convince themselves the voices in their head are actually passing on facts, and then post them on internet forums as such.

Gb160 said:

Narrator: He doesn't.

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Trix: He doesn’t!

The bit I love is that Levy gets flak for 'involving himself when he knows nothing about football'. Yet when he seemingly recognises this and uses a man, who to this day probably watches more football than anyone, is renowned for if nothing else having an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game and players, and spent 50-60 years playing, managing, administrating, scouting, and commentating on the game, as a sounding board from time to time that this is also the wrong thing to do

sunnydelight786 said:

Just over 7 months he’s been in & we’ve seen no real signs of improvement, fanbase split, calling out of players in interviews & playing ‘shit hanging off the end of a stick’ brand of football. This is mirroring his time at MUFC but all within a year as opposed to his 3rd season with them.

Everything I feared would happen within a few years has been accelerated and was exactly the reason why I was and still am opposed to his appointment. What have you done Daniel Levy ?

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How are there 'no real signs of improvement'? We won our first away game for about 7 months under Jose, we've had more clean sheets in the past 4 games under him than we did in the previous 20. We beat man.city at home, Wolves away, drew with Liverpool and Man.U, beat West Ham who last season we lost 1-0 to at home (never an easy game against them in their cup final), the defence is slowly looking more organised and solid and confident, Sheffield Utd aside in the past 4 games we've barely looked like conceding, Everton had just 6 touches in our box yesterday.

Jose is also slowly working out his best team and balance, Tanganga has been promoted who was excellent before his injury, Lloris has been very solid since Jose has come in, very few mistakes. Aurier has looked better and Davies has been solid, Dier has been moved to CB where he looks much more at home, Winks and Sissoko have improved defensively, GLC is looking more and more comfortable in our team and in the premier league, Lucas has more confidence, Kane is scoring again, we've picked up 2 wins a draw and a loss in 4 tricky games:
-Man.U draw - most in-form team in the league and we nearly snuck a win, the game plan worked well, since playing us they've blitzed ever team they've played yet we limited them to quite few chances as Jose said he gave them what they don't like
-West Ham win - last year we lost that 1-0 this time a fairly comfortable 2-0 win
-Sheff-Utd loss - yes awful result and performance but ironic that for 45 mins that was the 'best football' we've played under jose, most posession, most time in opponents half, but the attitude, effort and defensive organisation was poor and was corrected in our most recent win against Everton
-Everton win - This is a team who recently drew against liverpool and beat Leicester, they are not mugs and have a top top manager and we limited them to 6 touches in our box.

Its not pretty but its definitely not going in the direction of Jose's 3rd Man.U season no way, he's come in mid season with tons of injuries and a team very off form and is slowly improving things. So far everything he's said has been spot on e.g. about having more time, having a pre-season (he got a mini one due to covid), having the attacking players back from injury, finding the best balance for the team etc etc.

I think to be honest so far he's called out Ndombele who by all evidence is not pulling his weight in terms of effort and it looks like his entourage are making life quite difficult for jose and the club and he also called out the players against sheff.utd and rightly so, we've been a soft touch for too long and the effort and fine margins of tracking a player back etc are things which can win you or lose you games or get you to winning trophies or not.

I don't massively enjoy the football but given the situation he picked us up in I can see many signs of improvement, do you not agree?

mpickard2087 said:

....a man, who to this day probably watches more football than anyone, is renowned for if nothing else having an encyclopaedic knowledge of players...

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.....and a profound inability to pronounce any of their names.

I've followed Spurs through thick and thin for 30 years home and away and so personally whilst I can agree the football isn't mindblowing, I have watched and been involved in football long enough to see some signs of encouragement and can see that the way Jose is trying to play is starting to be and can be effective.

Sure we'd all love to see us playing tiki-taka high intensity beautiful football like Man.City or gegenpressing like Liverpool BUT we DO NOT have the players to do this anyway. We don't have TAA and Robertson at full-back we have Davies and Aurier, we don't have ball-playing CB's apart from Toby, we don't have a proper or single good DM option such as Rodri, fernandiniho, Fabiniho, Henderson, our midfield pairing of Winks and Sissoko pail in comparison to Henderson/Winjaldyum or KDB/D.Silva, our attacking options are no where near as consistently effective as Mane,Salah,Sterling,Marhez, etc, Kane can be world class and Son is not far off but Lucas is no where near and Bergweign is still learning his trade, so look at the reality of the situation and understand that firstly Jose isn't going anywhere anytime soon and secondly he's doing his best to play in a pragmatic way with the current options he has to try and win us games and make us successful. Levy is the one to blame for letting the squad get to this point.

Poch got us closest to those styles during the two seasons we finished 2nd, he also lost two cup finals and 3 semi-finals and then the project and team ran out of gas and a re-build was required. Sure I miss the free flowing football of yesteryear but the fact is that time and time again we haven't got over the line to win anything so for me after 30 years of seeing us be the nearly men, I'm ok to try and get behind a manager who love him or hate him has won trophies at EVERY single club he's been at. He's also come in mid-season to a team with tons of injuries to important attacking players and to a team who were/are low on confidence and exhausted from the emotional and physical toll of the past 5 years off effort under Poch.

So sure we might not enjoy the football too much but if Jose can get some players that he needs to improve clear weaknesses that every man and his dog can see such as : RB,LB,CB,DM,AM,ST then firstly we will see some slightly better football with better attacking full-backs, a DM who can cover the correct spaces, a CM/AM who can create and pass and a back-up to Kane so Kane and the AM's can go more gung-ho knowing there are actually some decent replacements who can fill-in. The issue is going to be with Covid limiting our funds and Levy limited the effectiveness of our recruitment with his meddling and pennypinching, If Jose can bend his hand to get some decent players in then we could do well next season.

SecretLemonadeDrinker said:

.....and a profound inability to pronounce any of their names.

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I actually really miss his uefa cup commentary. His mis pronunciations were amazing.


e - ha I randomly found this, pleaty gets cut off for answering beglin's question.

mpickard2087 said:

It's going to take much more than just hoping one or two individuals will solve the problem.

Neville was right on commentary last night, about half hour in, when he described it (both teams, but lets focus on Spurs) as just a series of slow one off passes with no idea behind them or with a purpose to do something. No harmony or fluidity to the movement of players or trying to link with others and construct a move in little sub-units. Especially in the final third. That is a whole team problem and requires everyone to improve on and off the ball.

You can say individual players should be able to work it out for themselves, but very often they cant. They need direction and the framework set for them, tons of coaching, to start gaining a better instinct for what you're trying to do.

This was a problem under Poch, it continues to be a problem if not worse under Mourinho. And is the weakest aspect of his coaching career tbh, he's much more comfortable organising, solidifying, and working on fast transitions rather than more patient football. But whilst he can get away with it at the moment, it will have to evolve pretty quickly beyond 'incredibly basic' possession play because he'll find what other managers have found, and the way modern football in general has gone, more and more teams prepared to sit off and defend deep and just ask you to break them down.

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I agree. It's why Sheffield utd do so well, they understand each other and are an incredible team. Under poch, we had it to an extent, especially in the seasons when we pressed and counter pressed, creating chaos and opportunities from that. Then teams worked that out and we changed the way we play. Built a squad that worked around Eriksens creativity in the final third and Demebles ability to switch defence into attack quickly. Son, Dele and Kane could run off those players and know if they gambled enough in a game, we would get goals. It was effective but could also lead to ffs moments. Now, we are effectively that same team without those players.

Defensively I am encouraged by what mourinho is doing right now. It takes time to bed in team shape and it's the right thing to do now - focus on defensive shape. Son used to be able to get away with not tracking runners because Demeble and Wanyama could cover easily. Not anymore. We had to change the way we play.

To become a better attacking unit, we do need more creativity in the team as wl as an outstanding DM. We need a couple or three players to give us that otherwise the skills of Dele, son, Kane et Al become less potent. .

Mourinho will develop our play but it takes time (Klopp a good example). He has identified a lack of defensive shape and mentality as key attributes to focus on right now. I don't see anything wrong with that.

For next season, I think the focus will shift and a part of that will be the players we have developing and recruitment. I'm enjoying seeing it develop.

1882andallthat said:

To settle for 1 goal and shut up shop in the last 15 mins, is always a dangerous game to play, very few teams are capable of doing it. We got away with it because Everton showed no real aggression and played half arsed as though the couldn't care less.

We are nowhere near good enough to score 1 and shut out 99% of teams, especially teams who are determined. It only takes one ball into the box, or over the top, one lapse in concentration and bang that's a goal conceded and points dropped. We simply cannot afford to play this way because you only have to open your eyes to see we have always got a mistake or few in us, and we get off the hook when opposition teams waste good chances.

I don't think I've ever seen us shutting out a team completely without giving away a good chance or half chance, so JM should stop coaching us into doing this, quite simply because we are incapable of it. If we don't score more than one, more often than not we come away without 3 points, and anyone who can't see that is just plain stupid.

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We didn't "shut up shop" in the 2nd half though, unless I imagined the chances that Son, Winks and Davies had. We kept looking for the 2nd goal, it just never came.
You also need to factor in that Everton defended deep and in numbers. I recall at least 3 occasions where Son had the ball in dangerous areas around their 18 yard box, only to be surrounded by Blue shirts. On one of those occasions I counted 5, forcing him to turn back out and recycle.

On reflection, whilst the game was a turgid affair, you have to accept that Everton were more culpable for this than us. They came with a clear gameplan to kill the game. We're struggling up front atm, so it's no real surprise that we didn't carve them open, no one has since the restart, even Liverpool who would have loved to have won the Prem at Goodison.

I still maintain that he's building the foundations in the right way. Defensive solidity and cohesion always comes first, it's the platform any and every successful team is built from. You can't do it from the front backwards, because an unstable defence undermines everything else.

Get the defensive mindset ingrained, and by that I mean the entire team working collectively to stop conceding. Only then do you work on transition into attack. Forwards will be a lot more relaxed and confident if they know they're not under pressure to score 2-3 goals every game in order to edge a win.

Metalhead said:

It’s funny but for a player who had many fans scratching their heads as to what his place was within the team, Dembele went on to be an incredible influence in the team and is really missed.

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God I miss Dembele and wanyama. Without injuries Our midfield today could be:

Dembele wanyama ndombele
Dembele wanyama winks
Dembele wanyama lo celso

And we would be instantly better. Goes to show, regardless of manager and tactics, it is so much easier to win with the right players on the pitch. Then next transfer windows will define our potential going forward.

SecretLemonadeDrinker said:

How do you know that Sessegnon had nothing to do with Poch?
How do you know we weren’t really in for Dybala?
How do you know that Poch wanted Phillips but that Levy overruled him?
How do you know that Pleat has such a massive influence over our transfers?

Genuine questions. I would love to know the answers. Cheers.

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Exactly. Poch could be ambiguous with his comments at the best of times although towards the end he seemed to be a bit less guarded. Didn’t he say something along the lines of “I’m not the manager, I am the head coach”? That did suggest discontent over transfers but with regard to your point, you are right - we don’t know.

Mourinho is just like Tony Pulis he does not understand Creative Attacking football. I read an interview with Sneijder recently saying how great Mourinho was because he sent him back to Holland a week of a game and did not expect him back until the day before and Pulis used to do similar things with Matthew Etherington where he did not have to train before games. Mourinho has always relied on individual talent to create his attacking play, Robben, Lampard, Deco, Hazard and Sneijder. He has no attacking system he just relies on individual creativity and then the team behind them being organised. TAA and Robertson would fail in Mourinho side, just like Luke Shaw did.

Ledley's Right Foot said:

God I miss Dembele and wanyama. Without injuries Our midfield today could be:

Dembele wanyama ndombele
Dembele wanyama winks
Dembele wanyama lo celso

And we would be instantly better. Goes to show, regardless of manager and tactics, it is so much easier to win with the right players on the pitch. Then next transfer windows will define our potential going forward.

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Oh yes - it’s such a shame about Wanyama too.